Health exam for X visa in the DC area?

[gumbico]

Shot emails to the local embassy and visa office and am awaiting replies. can't phone them as no one seems to pickup. Anyways, my tsinghua application packet says I need to get an exam at a hospital "appointed by the Chinese Embassy." I looked over the health exam form and it has a big fat box for an official seal. my family doc definitely doesn't have that.

So anyone here from the DC area that knows of locations to get this physical done? I'm in Fairfax, VA. Thanks in advance!

[mr.stinky]

you can download the forms from the chinese consulate website, not that that will do

any good.

i got my local physician to do the exam, and in the official box, got them to stamp

half a dozen of whatever rubber stamps they had in the office. anything that looks

mildly official.

anyway, did this after confirming with the uni that i could have it done in the states.

so when i arrive, the man who said i could, then said i could not.

so gotta traipse down to "the" clinic next to the airport, pay my 234 kuai, and waste

half a day repeating the health exam.

on a happy note.....they tell me it only has to be done once. as long as you remain

on a student visa, your health certificate is valid. will have to be redone if you change

visa type.

[roddy]

First make sure it's not possible to get the visa without the medical and then get it done in Beijing (or wherever), where it is likely to be a lot cheaper (can't remember the actual price. I think last time I did it it was around 300Y, but that was sometime ago, and it may be more expensive for student rather than working visas, strangely enough).

I seem to remember hearing that they are more strict in the US and do require you to get it done locally (even if, as Mr Stinky found, you have to get it done again in China). Past experience in the UK though is that you can get the visa without the medical.

It's meant to be redone every year I think, but that's not enforced.

[mr.stinky]

oh, forgot to mention. i didn't need the health cert to get the x visa. just sent my

passport to a helpful agency that then walked my application through to the consulate.

i got the health cert done separately (while i still had health insurance), did not send

these forms in with the passport.

the health cert is to get the residency permit once y'all are over here.

[gumbico]

man, I don't have that luxury. for the US, in order to get the X visa I have to get the health exam first. the uni says that I can use this same health form for my residence permit once I arrive. so in that sense, I won't be getting double dipped. but i'd much rather get it all taken care of over there once I arrive. Just wish the friggin local visa office would respond to my email or get more phone lines.

[edit]

wait, mr stinky is ex-texas so you're USA too. maybe I should go thru a visa service as well. but the friggin consulate is only 20 mins from me. bah!

[edit]

okay, all the online china visa service sites don't even mention a health check for an X visa. But my local visa office site says it's required and even has the form. If I can bypass it tho, that would be perfect. I prefer to go thru them and just get the physical for the residence permit once I get to Beijing. Stinky, would you recommend the service that you used for your X visa? Anyone else got any recommendations? There's so many online that I can't tell which are reliable and which ones aren't. I did notice that most of them are in Texas tho. Thanks!

[mr.stinky]

i went through visa express in houston...cause that's where a chinese consulate is

located. they even managed to process while most of the city was shut down due to

hurricanes.

www.visaexpress.net

1-800-884-7579

the fee was reasonable considering i'd have to drive 500 miles each way, and then

book hotels and meals in houston for at least two, maybe three, days.

[Craig]

Roddy's price of 300 sounds about right for a student as well. I remember paying around that amount last September. If you get it done at home there is a good chance they will make you goto their place in beijing anyways. For mostwas hit or miss with them accepting health exams from a students home country. One of the things they looked for was a chest x-ray and since most students didn't bring it many had to have the exam done in beijing as well.

[mr.stinky]

that's weird...i had the health exam done, and they wouldn't accept it. only they did

accept the one-page doctor's statement that the x-ray was normal. i didn't have the

x-ray with me, but that is the only thing they did not require redone.

[mrtoga]

The university info on this is very misleading. I have not heard of anyone who has been refused an X visa because they do not have the medical exams. Actually I seem to remember when I applied to BLCU a few years back some of the medical form details were in Chinese only (how is a foreign doctor going to fill that out?) and some of the tests they had never even heard of.

I went to the Chinese embassy in London for clarification and they said (in a rather surly tone) you just get that done after you arrive in China. As Roddy says, takes a morning and costs about 200 RMB with the universities my company works with (maybe 300 in Beijing though).

We have just helped a bunch of Americans process X visas in California, Chicago, New York and Washington D.C. - none of them needed medical checks, but who knows in the future......

[gumbico]

okay, i finally got my jw202. I'll be using visaexpress.net as well. it shows $218 for a 12-month multi entry visa at regular service (4 days).

thanks to all for putting me on the right path. it definitely would've sucked to go thru and pay for the health exam here only to find it useless for the resident permit. time to book my tickets!

[mr.stinky]

what visa are you getting?

for study you need an x-visa. has a 90-day window to enter the country. is single

entry with a period of zero days (at least mine was). you're supposed to immediately

get your police registration if not staying in a hotel/uni housing, and (usually) go

through the uni to get your residence permit.

residince permits allow multi-entry, and are usually for however long your tuition is

paid up.

someone correct me if i am wrong, please.

[gumbico]

Wait, so I only need a standard 12 month X visa? If the residence permit will grant me multiple entry, then there's no sense in me paying for the multi-entry visa then. Hope this is true. I'll email my uni to see what their thoughts are. The friggin chinese visa office here in DC is completely useless. They don't reply to emails and phonecalls always ring forever or I get the busy singal. Or maybe I just have crappy timing....

[gumbico]

fedex'd out my passport and jw202 last wednesday (july 5th) and just got my passport fedex'd back to me (july 12th) with a 12-month multi-entry X visa inside. and all WITHOUT the health exam!

[edit]

nevermind, they SUCK. my visa is for single-entry only and it's a pain in the ass to get it sent back for reprocessing for multi-entry. plus they want me to pay for all the shipping costs. looks like i'll just have to get the change to multi-entry done once i'm in BJ.

[woliveri]

Sorry, I arrived in late on this one.

As I understand it, you only need a health cert/medical checkup if you're going to study longer than 6 months (2 or more semesters). Many of the people at SISU I spoke to had gotten their health checkups before they came to China only having to have it done again after they arrived (for those who planned and signed up for 2 or more semesters). This includes a friend from Japan and the U.S.

Just some added info from my experiences.

HTH

[Jamoldo]

I applied for an x visa this past week and will pick it up Monday (tomorrow). The kind woman in Washington DC asked if I was applying for an X Visa and I wanted multiple entry, and I said yes, to which she replied ok thank you and gave me a reciept. I handed her all of my documents (they wanted copies not originals, or the application jw 202 and others), but when I tried to give her my health forms (HIV/Blood tests, Xray results, Physical form from the embassy website), she smiled and said it was for my university that I needed it and not the visa.

So we'll see and I will let you all know

[mr.stinky]

gumbico: i think you got what you was supposed to gotten. unless i'm mistaken, all

x-visa's are single enty, valid for 000 days. it's the residence permit, valid for the period

your tuition is paid up, that allows for multiple entries.

we'll have to wait and see what jamoldo receives.

[Jamoldo]

Stinky et al, I got my visa today from the DC office. Looks like multiple entry for me. Here are the details:

Catagory: X

Entries: M (duo character, as in duo da?)

Enter before 8/17/2007

Duration of each stay: 000 (whatever this means)

Also attached on the opposite page is a little note stating that I have to register "obtain aliens' residence permission" with the local PSB office within 30 days of entry.

[Qcash3]

When I applied for my X visa the woman told me that I didn't need to get a mutliple entry visa, because the residence permit would cover that, thereby saving me lots of dollars . As far as the health exam, I am just going to do that in Beijing, there is another thread up here that tells you where to go.

[Jamoldo]

yeah no one told me about that and I wanted to play it safe.

As for health exams, they didnt want my papers (apparently its for the university).